The Deepki start-up raises 150 million euros

Deepki, which had raised only 10,5 million euros until now, is aimed at large owners of tertiary real estate, investors, banks, insurance companies or large companies such as the Mousquetaires group (Intermarché) in France.

Its software will automatically look for a lot of data on buildings - energy or water bills, construction information, including solar exposure, or proximity to public transport... - then uses them to assess the environmental performance of buildings, and suggest improvements.

The young shoot of 150 employees, already established in France, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy, expects 200 recruitments in 2022, before 400 in 2023, according to its co-founder and general manager Vincent Bryant.

“We want to strengthen ourselves in Europe”, “establish ourselves in the United States” and “make acquisitions of competing players who are of quality but smaller than us”, indicated to AFP Mr. Bryant.

The company is sufficiently sure of itself to publish its turnover, an extremely rare decision among start-ups which are still very modest on this chapter: 15 million euros in 2021, and a doubling planned to 30 million euros. euros in 2022.

Sales are driven by "increasingly numerous" regulatory constraints in France and Europe on the environmental quality of buildings, explained Mr. Bryant.

All the big real estate players "know that if they don't have buildings that perform well from an environmental point of view, there are going to be discounts (in value) on their buildings", he added.

In France, the "tertiary decree" published in 2019 obliges in particular all tertiary buildings of more than 1.000 m2 to take the necessary measures to reduce their energy consumption by 40% by 2030, 50% by 2040 , and 60% by 2060.

Deepki's fundraising announced on Wednesday is led by European investment funds One Peak and Highland Europe, based in London, with other investors such as Bpifrance or its historical investors Hi Inov and Statkraft Ventures.